Lead Software Developer

Job Title: Lead PHP Developer / Technical Lead

Location: Exeter (Hybrid Working)

Salary: £70,000 – £80,000

About the Role

Our client, a fast-growing SaaS company based in Exeter, has secured significant financial investment and is looking to strengthen their development leadership team.

As Lead PHP Developer / Technical Lead, you’ll play a key role in scaling the company’s technical capabilities while leading a talented team of developers. This position combines leadership with hands-on development, allowing you to guide the team, manage key technical decisions, and drive the delivery of high-quality software.

This is an excellent opportunity to contribute directly to the growth of a company at a crucial stage in its journey, with the potential for real impact as you help shape the future of its product and technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and support a team of PHP developers, ensuring high standards of technical expertise and professional growth.
• Take ownership of technical architecture and decision-making, ensuring best practices and scalability.
• Conduct regular code reviews, helping the team maintain high-quality, maintainable code.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (product, QA, and design) to ensure projects are delivered on time and to specification.
• Manage development timelines, resources, and priorities, identifying and addressing potential blockers.
• Drive improvements in development processes, tooling, and system scalability to meet the company’s growing needs.
• Contribute to AWS deployments and the management of cloud infrastructure.

About You

You’re an experienced PHP developer with a strong technical background and the leadership skills to guide a team through growth. You’ll bring hands-on development experience and a clear vision for scaling and improving the technology stack. You’re ready to take on a more strategic role while staying closely involved in the development process.

• Strong PHP development experience, with expertise in frameworks such as Laravel, Symfony, or Yii .
• Proven leadership experience in a technical role, ideally within a SaaS environment.
• Proficiency with AWS , Docker , Git , and MySQL .
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills.
• Effective communicator, able to work with both technical and non-technical teams.

Desirable Skills

• Experience with Node.js or other backend technologies.
• Familiarity with frontend frameworks such as Vue.js or Angular .
• Experience with Firebase or real-time services.

This role offers the chance to make a meaningful impact on a growing company, with the opportunity to shape both the team and the technology stack as the company scales. If you’re looking for a leadership position in a forward-thinking company, we’d love to hear from you.